Experimenting with W/D/W, W/D and Stereo

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homespun
homespun
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I ran a stereo guitar rig for many years. I always enjoyed the width of the modulation sounds and the ping-pong delays. Recently, I've tried moving to a W/D/W rig.

From my amp's effects send I go to a splitter. Half back to the amp's effects return and the other to a stereo processor to a stereo power amp. 2 cabinets, one for the amp's output and the other split for the stereo effects.

It seems to me that the complexity of a W/D/W rig isn't offering anything over a regular stereo rig. Kill dry is a strange thing for me to wrap my head around since I don't want to run a dry signal to the effects amp, when you cut out the effects there's a lot of volume drop as your removing an entire cabinet from the mix. Kill dry also requires effects to run in parallel when used together unless you just want to effect the effects upstream but I don't.

Am I doing something wrong or is there not that much to gain from going full W/D/W over true stereo? What is your experience?
 
W/D was my favorite. With the band I didn't find a W/D/W rig useful. But did like the separation of my effects from my amp.

These days I just don't use effects much. Just a wa and modulation pedal.
 
I’m just a wanker but I have always loved a stereo rig. That’s what I’m running now and it just fucking kills, massive sounds. I have never experienced wdw but I really want to try it out once in my life. I’m running my tremoverb in stereo with a pv Windsor, using the ms3 for effects. When I get my pre back it will be my center channel dry. I need a splitter and another cabinet first. Not sure if that’s a true wdw or not but I do want to give it a whirl…
 
To me WDW really offers nothing much in sound or functionality over a traditional and well executed stereo rig, but it sort of depends on what your available and preferred gear is.

The early ones Bob Bradshaw did had dry in the wet cabs also, to enable more complicated cascaded FX routings. In essence just his normal monster stereo rigs with an added center dry cab. Having dry in the wet cabs became a no-no much later, for whatever reason, and that line of thought made using anything but a single mix of parallel FX a bit of a headache.
 
I might agree that its not heads and shoulders better in wdw vs. stereo. But it is still awesome sounding, either way...

My wdw is a a bit different than the norm in that I'm using a clean combo amp as my center D, but using two channel switching heads as L/R with an H9 in the loop of both. I also run a two amp stereo patch on my axe-fx out to a FRFR stereo cab. Not to get too into the weeds on the wiring and what not, I use a radial shotgun to route signals, and voodoo lab switchers to control channels, so I can run any variation/combination of the amps and axe-fx I want. The 3 amp w/d/w set up sounds massive and awesome, but the stereo setup of just the axe-fx does too, Running all of it together is another experience on its own, two layers of stereo spread and 5 different amp tones all at once is quite glorious. So it all depends on what you are willing to deal with both will sound good....
 
Dave L said:
To me WDW really offers nothing much in sound or functionality over a traditional and well executed stereo rig, but it sort of depends on what your available and preferred gear is.

The early ones Bob Bradshaw did had dry in the wet cabs also, to enable more complicated cascaded FX routings. In essence just his normal monster stereo rigs with an added center dry cab. Having dry in the wet cabs became a no-no much later, for whatever reason, and that line of thought made using anything but a single mix of parallel FX a bit of a headache.
Click to expand...
This is where I’m at. I get the best sound from running dry in the effects amp but it’s no better than a true stereo rig.
 
I remember Zachman used to talk about it ALL the time. He had good tone. I always assumed (maybe falsely) that w/d/w was geared more for a live show where effects were a bigger part of the overall tone. Anyone know whatever happened to him?
 
W/D/W really shines with 3 separate cabs. You wont really get much more than stereo if your using one split cab. You also need kill dry for the effects cabs BUT, depending on what you like, little bit of dry mixed might work better for you. How are you splitting your signal? Are you using an actual mixer with volume controls or just a basic Y type splitter? If thats the case then see if you can bump up the input in your effects unit.
It can sound killer with modulated clean sounds with the 3 cab setup, but obviously its not practical. LOL Hope that helps.
 
I find W/D/W to sound significantly better than stereo when done correctly (getting the phasing correct is extremely important)
Having a dedicated center dry cab makes for a much more punchy & defined soundscape
 
Braciola said:
I find W/D/W to sound significantly better than stereo when done correctly (getting the phasing correct is extremely important)
Having a dedicated center dry cab makes for a much more punchy & defined soundscape
Click to expand...
I’m not sure I’m hearing a significant enough difference.
 
I've experimented with various types of W/D, W/D/W, Stereo as well as different cabs to run with them. I do really like W/D/W, but I like the dry or center to consist of two 4x12's with a pair of vertical 2x12's on each end for the stereo wet stuff like ping pong and cool stereo modulation stuff. It also provides even more spread while still only taking up the width of three 4x12's. With that setup I still run a delay into the "dry" amp at times too which of course sends the mono delay through all the cabs.
I don't like W/D much. I use straight up stereo most of the time with two 4x12's. I actually think I prefer it and it is a bit simpler.
 
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